They had been playing together since college, the same four men every third Thursday, carrying the same scarred card table through apartments, houses, marriages, divorces, and enough jobs to make the years seem less orderly than the game. The ritual survived everything. Beer changed brands. Stakes rose and fell. One of them quit smoking and another started again. The fifth chair always remained empty, a courtesy seat for someone who might join someday, though nobody ever did.
Then someone did.
He appeared one October carrying nothing, sat in the empty chair, and played as though he had been coming for years. He knew when to fold, laughed at the old stories before their endings, and helped gather the chips when the night was over.
Nobody remembered inviting him.
By the third month, that seemed less important than the fact that he belonged there. The table looked balanced with five around it, though nobody could explain why they had ever bothered keeping a spare chair.
What made them uneasy were the things he knew. He mentioned a debt one man had hidden from his wife, the name of a doctor another had not yet called, and the exact sentence spoken during an argument that had ended a marriage ten years earlier. He offered these details casually, with the warmth of an old friend correcting a story everyone already knew. No one asked how he knew. The questions felt impolite in a room built around familiarity.
In January, one of the original four missed the game. The others noticed only when the first hand was dealt, and even then none could agree who was absent. They remembered someone laughing too loudly at bad jokes, someone always sitting nearest the stairs, someone who cheated when drunk. His face refused to settle in memory. The newcomer suggested they keep playing, since the table had the right number anyway.
Another chair was empty last month.
Tonight there are four men at the table again, though the framed photographs along the basement wall show gatherings none of them recognize. In every picture the same smiling guest sits among them, while the faces around him change from year to year.
There is still a fifth chair waiting near the wall.
One of the players mentioned bringing a friend next time, and the newcomer smiled with such genuine pleasure that everyone agreed it had been far too long since they welcomed someone new.
©2013 Rhyan Scorpio-Rhys
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